Turtle Egg-laying Season

Yesterday morning on our way to M**'s along Bow Wow Road, we spied a large snapping turtle in a lettuce field digging a hole for her eggs in the soft soil (click photo to enlarge). She probably crawled from the adjacent Mill Pond in early morning, and had almost completed her digging. A close look showed no sign of eggs in the hole, but we admit to a cursory inspection of the wary turtle.
How the eggs will fare, we can only guess, but harbor some doubts, if only because the lettuce is plowed under after a week or so of picking, and a new crop of a popular variety planted in several cycles all summer. Surely the tilling will dash all hopes for the usual September swarm of little snappers rising from the warm soil to rush to the pond before crows and raccoons decimate their number.
We trust that other turtles have the sense to choose a better nesting site.